Does Gravity Disprove God?

[Keith&Co.]

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.

Which is what we would expect to find in a godless universe, no?
So it's at least consistent.

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God

No, I'm pretty sure he does not mean that.
Anonymous stories of unknown date or provenance are not really useful as historical evidence.

See, there's accidents, there's eyewitness' accounts of accidents, there's direct examination of the wreckage...
...and then, there's a story someone heard someone else tell about an accident someone else saw forty, fifty years ago, with rather outrageous details ("....and then the guy who'd been run over jumped up and jumped over the stoplight...")... It's not that 'some don't believe' the account, it's that it doesn't qualify as historical evidence.

 

[bigfield]

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God
That 'information' is documented and presented as historical evidence.

And it does not support the existence of the Christian God, or any god for that matter.

Of course I realise you might not believe that evidence, but some people don't believe the evidence for climate change either.

Christian apologists are experts in putting the cart before the horse: having established an irrational belief in God, they then seek out ways to defend that belief in the face of skepticism.

The idea that any of you came to your beliefs based on critical source analysis of the Bible is just plain ludicrous. If you made a habit of believing such extraordinary claims based on such flimsy evidence, you'd be an easier mark than an unusually-gullible five-year-old.

 

[DBT]

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.
...that would be evidence of something according to your epistemic system.

Atheism literally means 'without a belief in god' which, as I pointed out, is justified by an absence of evidence for the existence of a God or gods.

A justified belief requires verifiable evidence.

The default position for an absence of evidence to support a proposition, God or gods in this instance, is an an absence of belief/conviction that these things exist.

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God
That 'information' is documented and presented as historical evidence.
Of course I realise you might not believe that evidence, but some people don't believe the evidence for climate change either.

Your definition of 'evidence' may be a little sloppy. What the bible happens to claim is not evidence that its claims have merit. That would require external, objective corroboration.

 

[Malintent]

You are correct. There is no disproving Zeus.
The Christian Tri-Omni god, however, is disproven.

And how did you manage to disprove that god?

via internal inconsistency. One cannot be more than 2 out of 3 of the 'Omni-'s'

 

[Malintent]

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.
...that would be evidence of something according to your epistemic system.

The information we have about the Christian god is only available in the Bible (and associated writings)....

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God
That 'information' is documented and presented as historical evidence.
Of course I realise you might not believe that evidence, but some people don't believe the evidence for climate change either.

"evidence" can mean different things.

Casual / informal usage: information that is sufficient to draw a conclusion from
Legal: information that is intended to support an assertion
Science: Information that supports an assertion

The scientific usage of the word "evidence" is the most strict. It prevents things like:

"witches exist because they were written about in Harry Potter"
"Harry Potter proves witches exist"

The bible is evidence that the bible contains words that say a particular god exists... which is a fairly useless thing to say. In logic, it is called a Tautology. Nothing new can be learned from tautologies.

Anything that is self referencial cannot be evidence... is very much like trying to define a word using the same word...

Ironic defined: When something has irony.

See? Useless.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.

Proof that something doesn't exist. Honestly, atheism can never really be proven, at best is can be presumably observed.

The information we have about the Christian god is only available in the Bible (and associated writings)....

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God
That 'information' is documented and presented as historical evidence.

Sure, it presented as historical evidence, much like a Stephen Ambrose book, but that doesn't mean there is confirmation of any of it. In fact, the events in the Tanakh and New Testament are terribly undocumented through additional sources, even worse than a Stephen Ambrose book.

Of course I realise you might not believe that evidence, but some people don't believe the evidence for climate change either.

There is a difference. Climate Change is a presume conclusion based on data. While it is possible to disagree on the conclusions of said data, what is no possible to presume the data itself doesn't exist. Where as the Tanakh and the New Testament consist of a myriad of events that seem to have little backing with second hand sources. And this is ignoring the whole New Testament was written well after the kid born to a virgin actually died. There is little in the way of data to support most of the Christian narrative. So little that Christians have to claim their god help author the book they find holy in order to give it any authority at all.

 

[skepticalbip]

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.
...that would be evidence of something according to your epistemic system.

That doesn't make sense. What scrap of evidence (never mind overwhelming) is there that I don't believe in gods?

 

[Kharakov]

And how did you manage to disprove that god?

via internal inconsistency. One cannot be more than 2 out of 3 of the 'Omni-'s'

Unless you've also got a Dodge Omni. Then you can go like hell.

 

[Malintent]

You're doing missile gravity professionally and you're pointing out the ways in which I'm wrong in my saying essentially nothing and laughing to myself. That alone compels at least me. You're coming to me too correctly and you're using too many examples, as if we're debating

Hi Another1. Thank you for the admission of Trolling. Trolling is prohibited on this board. Please refrain from "saying nothing and laughing to yourself" so that you can be "compelled" to keep trolling. I've reported your post. Go "wake-and-bake" in your mother's basement while trolling another site. I hear Twitter is really good for that.

 

[Gila Guerilla]

...The absence of evidence to support the existence of something is evidence against its existence...

There's an overwhelming absence of evidence for atheism.
...that would be evidence of something according to your epistemic system.

There's a mismatch of categories there.
On the one hand we have: "Absence of evidence to support the existence of something is evidence against its existence".
On the other hand we have: "Absence of evidence to support the existence of something is evidence for its non-existence".

Existence and non-existence are quite different kettles of fish, with quite different bounds of required and possible evidence.
Of course, the non-existence to which I refer here, is the non-existence of something in all universes, in all planes of possibility, at this time, (if such a time concept makes sense).

Furthermore, we should add: "Absence of evidence to support the existence of something is not PROOF of its non-existence, but rather, evidence that it probably doesn't exist".
One trite response to the claim of an absence of evidence for "God" has been; "You haven't looked everywhere!" (Meaning: 'Tada - got you!!!')
That may be the solution to the problem of evidence for "God", (that it's where we haven't yet looked).

But if there is no god, then it wouldn't matter how long or hard you looked, you wouldn't find any evidence for it, only an absence of evidence.
Furthermore, what valid evidence for the absence of "God", could one demand?
Philosophical arguments don't constitute evidence, except inasmuch as they may satisfy some people, may be internally consistent and coherent, but are still not necessarily true.
To reasonably accept something as true, it needs to be demonstrably true, not merely a good argument.

So in the absence of convincing evidence FOR "God", a reasonable person should at most be agnostic.

But theism is belief in a god, (a tautology). Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god, (also a tautology).
Agnosticism does not qualify as belief, and so a person who is agnostic cannot be qualified as theist, and by default are atheist.

The information we have about the Christian god is only available in the Bible (and associated writings)....

You mean...the EVIDENCE we have about the Christian God
That 'information' is documented and presented as historical evidence.
Of course I realise you might not believe that evidence, but some people don't believe the evidence for climate change either.

Another category error. The historical evidence which is only found delineated in the Bible, (as opposed to commentary of what is in the Bible, or what is absent from sources other than the Bible), is nowhere near as justifiable as the evidence for climate change.
The fact that some people accept and present as historical evidence, what is in the Bible, does not necessarily mean that those people are correct.
Certainly in my opinion, what is claimed in the Bible should require a much higher standard of evidence than the evidence that Hannibal crossed the Alps on elephants.
It's not of any great relevance to our daily lives in 2016, whether or not the Hannibal escapade is true or false.
And it's not a good trait to have, (IMHO). to accept something as truth, just because some people look down on a lack of acceptance of that as being true.
If the evidence in the Bible were so conclusive, I doubt we'd have had so much dissension, after all, don't we want to seek what is true?

 

[Coleman Smith]

My own view is that there is no such thing as proving a nonexistent entity because that violates the premise that the burden of proof always goes to the advocate.

The believer has the burden.

Trying to prove the nonexistence of a deity has about as much chance of success as trying to convince a mental patient that he is not actually Napoleon.

 

[Underseer]

My own view is that there is no such thing as proving a nonexistent entity because that violates the premise that the burden of proof always goes to the advocate.

The believer has the burden.

Trying to prove the nonexistence of a deity has about as much chance of success as trying to convince a mental patient that he is not actually Napoleon.

You can't prove that fairies don't exist, therefore I have proved that fairies exist!

 

[AJ113]

Or more importantly, does anyone in their right mind want to suggest that gravity disproves God?

Seriously.

It's not an intelligent force. Or at least we can't detect any intelligence on the part of gravity. I mean, imagine if gravity acted stronger on people committing crimes. Cops can walk up and arrest people who are barely able to stand while they try to carry their swag to the getaway car. Imagine if rapists fell and broke their spines while their intended victims floated to the ceiling, out of reach, out of danger.
But, no, it's an impersonal effect. Mass affects other objects with mass, in ways that are predictable once we understand the effect. We can build machines that use it or strive against it, and measure the way it varies from point to point on the Earth's surface.

The fact that it exists does not argue against any god in any way.

It's possible that it's just a trait held by mass in this universe as a result of impersonal forces interacting, it's equally possible that the creator(s) of the universe set it as part of his(her/their) divine plan. Either way, it's in place and there to be observed, measured, used by anyone, regardless of their outlook on the existence and nature of the divine.

Similarly, no one accuses people who research gravity with trying to disprove their god. No one insists that gravitational experts are turning their back on Vishnu or Ptah. No one who compiles the gravity variation map for missile launch programming is charged with 'hating Wotan' and none of the guys on our team that measured the exact vectors for gravity at the missile submarine base in Kings Bay, Refit Wharf Two, ever stopped to ask if what we were doing was blasphemy. Amaterasu is not NEEDED to explain why the apple fell on Newton's noggin, but neither does the apple's fall prove that Corn Woman isn't real.

Similarly, evolutionary science cannot be used to demonstrate if evolution is part of a god's (the gods') plan or not.
Which is weird, isn't it?

If the entire purpose of evolutionary theory is to create a lie in order to avoid/escape/defeat/blaspheme against/hide from a lawgiver who watches our every move and judges our eternal destination, why didn't we invent a fictional science that could establish that there are no gods?

Can anyone tell me why the vast international conspiracy to defeat the gods never once thought to just come out and prove that there are no gods?
Maybe invent a divine tricorder? A godcorder?
Should be easy enough, if the evil atheist conspiracy has that much control over science, just make one and tell everyone science did it, and it proves the gods are not detected, detectable, possible...
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ETA: Well, shit.

Actually, most theists I know don't have a problem with evolution, indeed the RC church has declared it to be fact in recent times. This is because there is so much evidence to support evolution that you'd have to be an idiot to deny it. A bit like denying the existence of gravity...

I think the main push of theists these days is something like: "OK well, evolution, yeah, you got us on that one, but you're not offering any evidence for the actual startup of it all, and we think you're going to struggle with that one for a long time to come, so we're just going to go ahead and invent our own explanation, which you will not be able to disprove."

 

[Underseer]

Or more importantly, does anyone in their right mind want to suggest that gravity disproves God?

Seriously.

It's not an intelligent force. Or at least we can't detect any intelligence on the part of gravity. I mean, imagine if gravity acted stronger on people committing crimes. Cops can walk up and arrest people who are barely able to stand while they try to carry their swag to the getaway car. Imagine if rapists fell and broke their spines while their intended victims floated to the ceiling, out of reach, out of danger.
But, no, it's an impersonal effect. Mass affects other objects with mass, in ways that are predictable once we understand the effect. We can build machines that use it or strive against it, and measure the way it varies from point to point on the Earth's surface.

The fact that it exists does not argue against any god in any way.

It's possible that it's just a trait held by mass in this universe as a result of impersonal forces interacting, it's equally possible that the creator(s) of the universe set it as part of his(her/their) divine plan. Either way, it's in place and there to be observed, measured, used by anyone, regardless of their outlook on the existence and nature of the divine.

Similarly, no one accuses people who research gravity with trying to disprove their god. No one insists that gravitational experts are turning their back on Vishnu or Ptah. No one who compiles the gravity variation map for missile launch programming is charged with 'hating Wotan' and none of the guys on our team that measured the exact vectors for gravity at the missile submarine base in Kings Bay, Refit Wharf Two, ever stopped to ask if what we were doing was blasphemy. Amaterasu is not NEEDED to explain why the apple fell on Newton's noggin, but neither does the apple's fall prove that Corn Woman isn't real.

Similarly, evolutionary science cannot be used to demonstrate if evolution is part of a god's (the gods') plan or not.
Which is weird, isn't it?

If the entire purpose of evolutionary theory is to create a lie in order to avoid/escape/defeat/blaspheme against/hide from a lawgiver who watches our every move and judges our eternal destination, why didn't we invent a fictional science that could establish that there are no gods?

Can anyone tell me why the vast international conspiracy to defeat the gods never once thought to just come out and prove that there are no gods?
Maybe invent a divine tricorder? A godcorder?
Should be easy enough, if the evil atheist conspiracy has that much control over science, just make one and tell everyone science did it, and it proves the gods are not detected, detectable, possible...
Edit / Delete Edit Post Quick reply to this message Reply Reply With Quote Reply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message

ETA: Well, shit.

Actually, most theists I know don't have a problem with evolution, indeed the RC church has declared it to be fact in recent times. This is because there is so much evidence to support evolution that you'd have to be an idiot to deny it. A bit like denying the existence of gravity...

I think the main push of theists these days is something like: "OK well, evolution, yeah, you got us on that one, but you're not offering any evidence for the actual startup of it all, and we think you're going to struggle with that one for a long time to come, so we're just going to go ahead and invent our own explanation, which you will not be able to disprove."

Ergo, god is an ever-receding pocket of ignorance, to quote Tyson.