Justify the belief that gods do not exist.

[wiploc]

Some people believe that gods do not exist. (One can call this position "atheism" or "strong atheism" or "anti-theist perversion," anything you want. But we aren't going to argue terminology in this thread. Clarity is good, so you can explain what you personally mean by "atheist," but you shouldn't suggest that other usages are inferior.)

This thread is to make a list of arguments, of reasons to believe that theism is false.

And we can discuss the soundness of those arguments.

I'll start:

1. The Parable of the Pawnbroker.
(I'll just post titles here, so as not to take too much space at the top of each thread.)

2. Presumptive Falsity of Outrageous Claims.



Feel free to add to this list.

[instantc]

[Replying to post 589 by instantc]

Hilbert's hotel isn't "the idea that an infinite regress of time involves a logical contradiction".

Hilbert's hotel is a paradox - specifically a veridical paradox (meaning it isn't demonstrated to have a contradiction - the conclusion is valid albeit seemingly absurd) referring to operations on infinite sets.

For the definition of paradox: "a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true."

Thanks for the correction, it doesn't show that an infinite regression involves a contradiction but a reductio ad absurdum.

Not only that, but it in no way maps to time. Whatsoever. Nor any other dimension.

I guess it doesn't, but it is not difficult to think of an argument along the same lines that shows the absurdity in the idea of an infinite regress of time.

Suppose planet A circles its sun twice as fast as planet B. Each year planet A makes one more circle than planet B, but yet if they have both existed for an infinite amount of time, they have both made exactly the same amount of circles, namely an infinite amount of circles.

Nor would it explain why God could be eternal.

No but it would answer Danmark's question, namely why can't the universe be eternal but God can.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 591 by instantc]

A reductio ad absurdum, for proving something can't exist, would have to show that the consequences following the results entail a logical contradiction.
NOT a fallacy from incredulity, as you have done.

There isn't an absurdity in an infinite amount of time.
One can even divide a finite amount of time into infinite segments. (if time is continuous)

Your example is also false equivocation. There's more than one infinity, and it's not as simple as a number. (Not to mention that a planet couldn't remain for an infinite amount of time)
In calculus, and specific operations, it can be treated simply as a really really big number. But you can't do operations on infinity itself.


And no, it would NOT explain why the Universe can't be eternal, and what I meant was, even if it could it wouldn't show God could. It would be as contradictory for God as for the Universe.

[instantc]

[Replying to post 591 by instantc]

A reductio ad absurdum, for proving something can't exist, would have to show that the consequences following the results entail a logical contradiction.
NOT a fallacy from incredulity, as you have done.

A reductio ad absurdum aims to show that a particular hypothesis has seemingly absurd implications. That's exactly what Hilbert's Hotel is doing.

There isn't an absurdity in an infinite amount of time.

What about my example of such absurdity?

One can even divide a finite amount of time into infinite segments. (if time is continuous)

Potentially yes, but you can never show me infinite segments of time. After every division, you have a finite number of segments, no matter how far you continue.

Your example is also false equivocation. There's more than one infinity, and it's not as simple as a number. (Not to mention that a planet couldn't remain for an infinite amount of time)

Are you saying that if A and B have both existed for an infinite amount of time, one could yet be older than the other? How so?

And no, it would NOT explain why the Universe can't be eternal, and what I meant was, even if it could it wouldn't show God could. It would be as contradictory for God as for the Universe.

No it wouldn't, if we postulate a God that does not exist in time. We cannot do the same for the universe, as we know that it exists inside time and space.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 591 by instantc]

A reductio ad absurdum, for proving something can't exist, would have to show that the consequences following the results entail a logical contradiction.
NOT a fallacy from incredulity, as you have done.

A reductio ad absurdum aims to show that a particular hypothesis has seemingly absurd implications. That's exactly what Hilbert's Hotel is doing.

A reductio ad absurdum aimed at showing it is impossible must show it is impossible.
"Impossible" doesn't follow from absurd.
The conclusions of the Monty Hall dilemma are seemingly absurd. They're also true and real.

There isn't an absurdity in an infinite amount of time.

What about my example of such absurdity?

Your example is also false equivocation. There's more than one infinity, and it's not as simple as a number. (Not to mention that a planet couldn't remain for an infinite amount of time)

Are you saying that if A and B have both existed for an infinite amount of time, one could yet be older than the other? How so?

No. I'm saying "infinity x 2 = infinity therefore infinity isn't real" isn't valid logic, let alone valid mathematics.
Your example is invalid.

One can even divide a finite amount of time into infinite segments. (if time is continuous)

Potentially yes, but you can never show me infinite segments of time. After every division, you have a finite number of segments, no matter how far you continue.

After an infinite number of divisions you don't. This is what we do all the time in calculus.
And yes I can.
Any finite interval of (anything, but specifically) time. That's an infinite number of smaller segments.

And no, it would NOT explain why the Universe can't be eternal, and what I meant was, even if it could it wouldn't show God could. It would be as contradictory for God as for the Universe.

No it wouldn't, if we postulate a God that does not exist in time. We cannot do the same for the universe, as we know that it exists inside time and space.

Once again, this has nothing to do with time or God.

[instantc]

[Replying to post 591 by instantc]

A reductio ad absurdum, for proving something can't exist, would have to show that the consequences following the results entail a logical contradiction.
NOT a fallacy from incredulity, as you have done.

A reductio ad absurdum aims to show that a particular hypothesis has seemingly absurd implications. That's exactly what Hilbert's Hotel is doing.

A reductio ad absurdum aimed at showing it is impossible must show it is impossible.
"Impossible" doesn't follow from absurd.
The conclusions of the Monty Hall dilemma are seemingly absurd. They're also true and real.

A reductio ad absurdum seeks to show that the hypothesis leads to absurdity and is thus likely false. There is nothing absurd in the outcomes of the Monty Hall dilemma. They are fully comprehensible for anyone who cares to look at the explanation.

One can even divide a finite amount of time into infinite segments. (if time is continuous)

Potentially yes, but you can never show me infinite segments of time. After every division, you have a finite number of segments, no matter how far you continue.

After an infinite number of divisions you don't. This is what we do all the time in calculus.

Just because mathematics can accommodate infinity it does not follow that reality can.

And yes I can.
Any finite interval of (anything, but specifically) time. That's an infinite number of smaller segments.

What I mean that you cannot show me an infinite segment of anything in reality. Of course you can hypothetically split a number into an infinite segments, that's what we call a potential infinite, which is quite different from an actual infinite.

And no, it would NOT explain why the Universe can't be eternal, and what I meant was, even if it could it wouldn't show God could. It would be as contradictory for God as for the Universe.

No it wouldn't, if we postulate a God that does not exist in time. We cannot do the same for the universe, as we know that it exists inside time and space.

Once again, this has nothing to do with time or God.

Postulating God has nothing to do with God? Universe that exists inside time and space has nothing to do with time and space? Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your objection here.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 591 by instantc]

A reductio ad absurdum, for proving something can't exist, would have to show that the consequences following the results entail a logical contradiction.
NOT a fallacy from incredulity, as you have done.

A reductio ad absurdum aims to show that a particular hypothesis has seemingly absurd implications. That's exactly what Hilbert's Hotel is doing.

A reductio ad absurdum aimed at showing it is impossible must show it is impossible.
"Impossible" doesn't follow from absurd.
The conclusions of the Monty Hall dilemma are seemingly absurd. They're also true and real.

A reductio ad absurdum seeks to show that the hypothesis leads to absurdity and is thus likely false. There is nothing absurd in the outcomes of the Monty Hall dilemma. They are fully comprehensible for anyone who cares to look at the explanation.

No, it intends to show that it is false because it either employs an absurd epistemology or is logically contradictory, or is absurd in an area where absurdity matters.

Claiming that you find the result absurd or that the fact it seems absurd (even to many people) has any implication on it's truthfulness is false. A fallacy of incredulity.

One can even divide a finite amount of time into infinite segments. (if time is continuous)

Potentially yes, but you can never show me infinite segments of time. After every division, you have a finite number of segments, no matter how far you continue.

After an infinite number of divisions you don't. This is what we do all the time in calculus.

Just because mathematics can accommodate infinity it does not follow that reality can.

Mathematics is not real in the sense that physical objects are.
Numbers aren't real in that same sense.

Mathematics are real in some sense, and in that sense infinity is exactly as real as numbers, mathematical objects and equations.

And yes I can.
Any finite interval of (anything, but specifically) time. That's an infinite number of smaller segments.

What I mean that you cannot show me an infinite segment of anything in reality. Of course you can hypothetically split a number into an infinite segments, that's what we call a potential infinite, which is quite different from an actual infinite.

What do you mean hypothetically? It IS an infinite number of smaller segments.
Are you saying that a metre isn't 100 centimetres?
That a centimetre isn't an infinite amount of infinitesimal measurements?

(Incidentally this paradox is related to one of Zeno's paradoxes which addresses transgressing an infinite number of things - the fact that Zeno'x paradox doesn't hold isn't just related to an actual infinite but is also related to the fact that paradoxes don't mean the conclusion is false)

And no, it would NOT explain why the Universe can't be eternal, and what I meant was, even if it could it wouldn't show God could. It would be as contradictory for God as for the Universe.

No it wouldn't, if we postulate a God that does not exist in time. We cannot do the same for the universe, as we know that it exists inside time and space.

Once again, this has nothing to do with time or God.

Postulating God has nothing to do with God? Universe that exists inside time and space has nothing to do with time and space? Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your objection here.

What we're actually discussing has nothing to do with time or God.
Hilbert's hotel has nothing to do with time or God.

[instantc]

No, it intends to show that it [... in an area where absurdity matters.

Where does absurdity matter then? I would say it most certainly matters when we are trying to figure out whether a hypothesis corresponds to reality.

Claiming that you find the result absurd or that the fact it seems absurd (even to many people) has any implication on it's truthfulness is false. A fallacy of incredulity.

Nor does claiming that you or other people find something logically contradictory has bearing on its truth value. What has such bearing is if such claim actually is absurd or logically contradictory.

Mathematics are real in some sense, and in that sense infinity is exactly as real as numbers, mathematical objects and equations.

The fact that mathematical equations can be said to exist abstractly does not begin to show that an infinite number of anything can exist in reality.

What do you mean hypothetically? It IS an infinite number of smaller segments.

Numbers don't exist in reality otherwise than as ideas, I don't care what the properties of a number are. You can split a stick in two segments. You can split it in four segments or in one hundred thousand segments, but you cannot split it into an infinite number of segments.

What you think is absurd/impossible has no relation to time and no relation to God.

Hardly so. I think that an infinite regression of time leads to an absurdity. How does that have nothing to do with time?

[Jashwell]

No, it intends to show that it [... in an area where absurdity matters.

Where does absurdity matter then? I would say it most certainly matters when we are trying to figure out whether a hypothesis corresponds to reality.

The first thing to come to mind would be the plot for a story.
It certainly does not matter when we are trying to figure out whether or not something corresponds to reality. This is literally a argument from incredulity.

You may be confusing correlation (many absurd things we don't believe in) with causation (the 'absurd' or strange being considered the reason we shouldn't believe). It's because of contradiction or parsimony that we don't believe in many absurd things - not 'because they're absurd'. In fact, many contradictory things are absurd because they contradict and many unparsimonious are considered absurd. (In which case assuming absurd -> impossible would be a third cause fallacy)

Another example of where absurdity matters is epistemology - but this is only when it leads us to believe contradictory things (or things contradictory to well established facts).

Claiming that you find the result absurd or that the fact it seems absurd (even to many people) has any implication on it's truthfulness is false. A fallacy of incredulity.

Nor does claiming that you or other people find something logically contradictory has bearing on its truth value. What has such bearing is if such claim actually is absurd or logically contradictory.

Are you suggesting you don't need to justify claiming it's impossible because it's absurd? (in which case, does the fact that God is absurd to many people mean that their belief in his non-existence is justified?)

Mathematics are real in some sense, and in that sense infinity is exactly as real as numbers, mathematical objects and equations.

The fact that mathematical equations can be said to exist abstractly does not begin to show that an infinite number of anything can exist in reality.

Everything mathematical exists abstractly.
There's no reason to think an infinite number can't exist just like a finite number can - in fact, there are examples of things infinite in number such as in Zeno's paradox. (infinite segments)

What do you mean hypothetically? It IS an infinite number of smaller segments.

Numbers don't exist in reality otherwise than as ideas, I don't care what the properties of a number are. You can split a stick in two segments. You can split it in four segments or in one hundred thousand segments, but you cannot split it into an infinite number of segments.

You don't need to split it. It IS an infinite number of infinitesimal segments. They are EQUIVALENT. A segment need not be actuated to exist conceptually - the count of a set is itself abstract. The whole idea of a set is abstract.

"I have an infinite number of infinitesimal segments of a stick"
"No, you have a stick"

"I have a basket, an apple, an apple, an apple, an apple... "
"No, you have a basket of apples"

"I have two conjoined halves of an apple"
"No, you have an apple"
That is what you're doing.

If you do think calling an apple two halves of an apple is valid, then of course calling an apple a thousand million billionths would also be valid. So would calling it an infinite amount of infintesimal sections of an apple. (Though that wouldn't be very specific)

What you think is absurd/impossible has no relation to time and no relation to God.

Hardly so. I think that an infinite regression of time leads to an absurdity. How does that have nothing to do with time?

You've missed the point. How is anything you've said relevant to time?
Do you think that even if common arithmetic didn't work on infinities (like some laws of basic arithmetic don't work on negatives and some on complex numbers) that it would show that time can't be infinite in length?
That if you could simply "budge everything over one" in an infinite count of something that it would somehow show that time can't be infinite?

[Divine Insight]

Tho' I would like to believe otherwise, when my heart stops beating, when it ceases to pump oxygen and other nutrients to my brain, my brain will begin its transformation into dirt. I will no longer exist. My mind will be gone. The storage facility I think of as memory, the racks and stacks of information I've absorbed and made part of me over the years will be gone. The framework that holds the individual units, along with the parts, the cells, will be gone. What is left will be food for worms. To the extent I continue it will be only in the memory of others or in whatever words I have published. I have no illusion that "I" will remain. My consciousness of myself will have dissolved.

I will agree with you completely that Danmark will be gone. All your memories will be gone and everything you have ever done will be lost forever, save for the effects they have had on others.

But that raises the question, "Are you really Danmark?" Is that the essence of your being? That is the question that the mystics have answered, "no". You are not what you think you are. You are not the experiences that you have had in this particular incarnation. That is not who you are.

How do they know this? Well they know it because that is nothing more than a temporary configuration of the current situation. Clearly even you recognize this to be the case since you recognize that this situation will indeed end.

But therein lies the problem. If you are nothing more than your current configuration then that is all that you are. And if that's the case then a configuration is "having an experience". But how can a configuration have an experience?

Where is there to have an experience?

This is why the mystics have concluded that we can't simply be a temporary configuration. Instead we must necessarily be the thing that has become manifest as that configuration. Only that can have any genuine existence or substance. Only that can truly be an entity that can have an experience. So that is what we must truly be.

Someday Danmark will cease to be. But you will never cease to be. You will reawaken again in yet another form. You won't even remember having been Danmark.

Now you may ask, "But will that really be me?"

Well, sure it will. Because YOU will be the one who is having this experience. And that is the true you. That is the you that goes beyond any temporary configuration. That is the you that is eternal.

Can this be proven scientifically?

Well, I'm not sure if it can or can't. It seems impossible to confirm by any objective scientific means. How can we ever tell whether a configuration is having an experience, or whether it's the actual stuff that is taking on a configuration?

I wouldn't have a clue how to propose an experiment that could objectively detect this.

In fact, it would even be impossible to subjectively detect it.

Imagine that you are living as Danmark, but you on your death bed moments away from your death. In the next room is a woman moments away from giving birth to a baby.

Finally you die, you black out and that's that last thing you experience as Danmark.

But the next thing YOU know you are being pushed out of a birth canal into the hands of some doctor. You have absolutely no memory at all of having been Danmark.

That is the real "you" in the mystical belief. Exactly how it works is obviously a mystery. This is why they call it "mysticism".

But yes, sadly Danmark will be no more. But it happens to all of us, so that's just the way things are.

Que Sara Sara.

[Fundagelico]

Look, this is all very interesting and informative and pedantic, but mostly a red herring. If gravity is nothing but an observation, there would be no way for Newton to enhance our understanding of it, nor for Einstein's understanding of it to blow Newton's through the roof. With observations, what you see is quite literally what you get. This is why I say gravity is a theory, not an observation. It's an explanation for why massive objects behave the way they do. And if history has anything to say about it, our current understanding will very likely change drastically in the future.

Gravity has never been anything other than an observation of a particular way in which our universe behaves. That's all it has ever been. Our understanding of why the universe behaves in the way we call "gravity" has certainly become deeper over the years.

And as far as our current understanding of gravity changing drastically in the future, that is highly unlikely. Our understanding may indeed become deeper as we learn even more, but it will never change "drastically" because gravity has never been anything more than an observation of a particularity property of behavior that our universe exhibits. And that isn't likely to change unless the universe itself starts behaving dramatically different.

According to your own Brief History of Gravity, when Einstein's understanding of gravity came along it blew our previous understanding of gravity "through the roof," as you put it. I don't see how this can be reinterpreted to mean that Einstein's understanding was nothing markedly different from the understandings of Newton, Kepler or Aristotle.

Clearly, your "understanding" of science is not based upon science, but instead it must necessarily be some sort of metaphysical philosophical view. If you are thinking of "gravity" as being some sort of thing that is something other than a behavioral property of our universe, then you aren't thinking of gravity scientifically.

You are trying to make a "ghost" out of gravity. It's no wonder that you then view it as being no different from a "god".

No, you "appear" to be "trying" to create an "argument" for me of whole "cloth" – or if you "prefer," a "man" out of "straw," so to "speak." (Gratuitous random scare quotes added for emphasis. ) You don't know what I'm trying to do until I tell you, and I never suggested anything like making a ghost out of gravity.

Gravity is not an entity. It's simply a particular behavior of the universe. That's all it is, and that's all it has ever been treated as in modern science. Although it may be true that in antiquity science and metaphysics weren't so clearly distinct.

In ancient times Aristotle spoke in terms of a "Prime Mover". Today we see this as simply being inertia. Gravity too, at some point may have been seen as an action of gods, but now it is recognized to simply be a property of the universe.

If you think gravity is anything more than this, then you are actually making a "God" out of "gravity. So it's no wonder that you see no difference between these two concepts.

But I don’t think of gravity in any of the ways you have ascribed to me, so this most recent lecture in your ongoing series of lectures on science and metaphysics is mostly irrelevant. I do consider gravity to be a theoretical explanation that is distinct from mere observation of its effects, however, and I am surprised that with such thoroughgoing knowledge of all things scientific you would disagree.

By the way if you are claiming that God is analogous with Gravity then you are necessarily claiming that God is nothing other than a property of the universe.

That wouldn't be much of a God.

Granted, but again you're just thrashing strawmen with this. I never suggested that an analogue is identical in every respect to its target (indeed, by definition it is not). That's why I specifically stated: "I understand gravity to be a hypothesis to explain observations. And in that respect if no other, God and gravity are analogous. "