If 2 or more unfalsifiable beliefs contradict one another, all could be wrong. All but 1 must be wrong.
If there were 5 unfalsifiable competing beliefs that did not allow for the existence of the others, we would know for a fact that 4 of them must be incorrect.
If someone, then came along, and stated that their belief allows for the existence of some or all of the other beliefs, we would then have to state that there are 6 competing unfalsifiable beliefs, because the first 5 do not allow for the 6th, and if any of the first 5 are correct, the 6th belief would consequently be incorrect. If the 6th unfalsifiable belief were correct, than anyone believing in the first 5 would then be incorrect. Although the 6th allows for the existence of the first 5, only those believing in the 6th unfalsifiable belief would be correct.
I'm not so arrogant as to believe that I am 100% correct. But this is as close as I can come to proving a negative. Does anyone agree that this might be a good starting point?
Proving a negative
Moderator: Moderators
Post #21
Monsieur Poirier, does your argument amount to "I'm not a Christian, therefore God doesn't exist?"
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Post #22
Clearly no. How could you just so badly ignore the contents of my argument to reduce it to such a ridiculous statement ?? Is it your divine faith that makes you unable to understand the depths of the arguments presented to you, and lead you to make systematic straw man interpretations (to not say: deprive you of the primary school ability to read a text and understand what it is about).
Moreover I was devout evangelical Christian when I started to badly need what I mentioned above. So, I did my best with all my heart to trust God that He would provide for what I needed in this way, but He did not help.
Moreover I was devout evangelical Christian when I started to badly need what I mentioned above. So, I did my best with all my heart to trust God that He would provide for what I needed in this way, but He did not help.
Post #23
So your reasoning was this;spoirier wrote:Moreover I was devout evangelical Christian when I started to badly need what I mentioned above. So, I did my best with all my heart to trust God that He would provide for what I needed in this way, but He did not help.
1) If God exists, He'll give me some special miraculous sign to demonstrate His existence
2) God never did this
3) Therefore He doesn't exist
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Post #24
No it was not. I already told you that I was a devout Christian at that time, so that I did not need any sign to demonstrate God's existence.AquinasD wrote:So your reasoning was this;
1) If God exists, He'll give me some special miraculous sign to demonstrate His existence
I had completely different needs than this, and these needs were fully legitimate as I already sketched above.
Also please read my testimony there, before giving any further evidence that I was right to warn in my above message that the (perhaps only) way for Christians to keep their faith is by giving themselves "good excuses" to easily and lightly ignore any evidence that anyone can have discovered against their views (in particular, mine was a tragical and life-long overwhelming one); namely, by following their divinely strong drive to make terribly insulting (direly violating the commandment to not make false testimonies against others) but holy (required for you to keep trusting your god) and divinely confident
Namely, that without even having to put on yourself the burden to care understanding its contents you can assume the core of my argument to have been the one of a complete moron, no matter that I have a PhD of mathematics and that I could rediscover the mathematical expression of General Relativity when I was 16.assumptions about my life that are light years away from what it clearly is to me
Post #25
Then what is your argument, except that you think God didn't give you something you think you needed?
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Post #26
I didn't "think" that God did not give me something I "think" I needed. Instead, I was deadly ovewhelmed by infallible, undeniable evidences that God really did not give me what I really, badly needed, and that these observations were infinitely wiser, more reliable and far-sighted than any reason I ever saw a Christian worship God for. Not just what I needed for myself, but what would have been needed to let me accomplish very useful works for millions of people. So even if my personal needs counted for nothing, these things would have been needed for the welfare of millions of people.
Once again I am fully aware that this is not complete proof, as the complete proof (of how beneficial to others my works would be) would require much more arguments than this and would be out of subject here.
But independently of this you still have to explain why God never helped anyone or any useful project for the world, in any way similar to what I sketched above.
Once again I am fully aware that this is not complete proof, as the complete proof (of how beneficial to others my works would be) would require much more arguments than this and would be out of subject here.
But independently of this you still have to explain why God never helped anyone or any useful project for the world, in any way similar to what I sketched above.
Post #27
Imagine a Christian girl that was kidnapped in her teenage and locked up in a place, whose reinforced door is unguarded and publicly accessible outside but protected by a secret code that is regularly used by the abductor to come, feed, beat and rape her. Imagine that this situation lasted for two decades, and nobody ever came to try to rescue her. She shouted, sometimes someone heard her. Many of the people who heard, including many Christians, did not understand that she had any problem. Some just told her to trust God, and promised that God would help. They offered their prayer and their faith that God would not let such horrors as she described, ever happen. Anyway all people just said that anyway they could not do anything for her as they did not know the code to open the door, but that if she was faithful and gave God her life, maybe He would inspire her the code of the door that she could tell someone to open the door for her.
Sometimes the abductor forgot his mobile phone in the room so that she could call and ask people for help but the dialogues there were the same.
She becomes desperate, and concludes that God does not care for her.
And then finally she calls a Christian minister, tells him her story, her wonder about why, among all the divine revelations that where claimed to happen in his church, nobody had the inspiration of what is the code of her door, and nobody even worried about the question how to open the door and is there any way by which the code could be found or anything else could be done; and he just dismisses all of her complaints by these words :
Sometimes the abductor forgot his mobile phone in the room so that she could call and ask people for help but the dialogues there were the same.
She becomes desperate, and concludes that God does not care for her.
And then finally she calls a Christian minister, tells him her story, her wonder about why, among all the divine revelations that where claimed to happen in his church, nobody had the inspiration of what is the code of her door, and nobody even worried about the question how to open the door and is there any way by which the code could be found or anything else could be done; and he just dismisses all of her complaints by these words :
AquinasD wrote:Then what is your argument, except that you think God didn't give you something you think you needed?
Post #28
I'm completely baffled. Your argument is thoroughly incoherent. I can't see the logical form, I can't discern the premises, I don't understand what your conclusion amounts to.
It all seems to amount to "God didn't give me something I wanted, therefore He must not exist."
It all seems to amount to "God didn't give me something I wanted, therefore He must not exist."
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Post #29
Some contradictions in the Christian concept of God.
First, they call Him a God of Justice and Love (or Mercy).
That, by itself, would not be so much a contradiction. We could indeed figure out ways to reconcile these two characters, either by compromise or by seeing them as different aspects of some deeper principle (like waves and particles in quantum physics).
But the devil is in the details of what the Christian doctrine means by the "justice" and "love" of its God.
Namely, the Christian description of divine "justice" is that of infinite hatred and sadism; while the Christian description of divine love (or mercy) is that of infinite injustice.
The result is that when Christians claim to believe in a God of Justice and Love, what they really mean is that they believe in a God of hatred and injustice, ridiculously misqualified as if this horror was the description of highest possible "justice and love", even higher than any human can imagine ; and we have the obligation to remain blind to this mistake, and keep worshipping that horror and calling it a god of "justice and love", otherwise we go to hell.
But the same God cannot combine the characters of Justice, Love, Injustice and Sadism. So we have a sort of contradiction here.
Another problem is with the status of Redemption: it plays the role of a sort of universal event, that is a contradiction. The same thing cannot combine both statuses of being existential and universal.
To see the contradiction, consider the question:
Imagine that the act of Redemption by the death of the Son of God had not happened on the Earth 2000 years ago, but on a planet of some other galaxy instead (in an event from which the light did not reach us yet), while the Jesus story here only emerged as a tale that people mistakenly believed in. Then would this act of Redemption in another galaxy be equally valid to save us ?
If yes, then Redemption is universal. If no, it is existential. It cannot be both.
You can also consider the same question if this act of Redemption only exists in God's plans for our Earth in year 12,345 AD as measured by our imperfect conventions - and ifever something will make it fail, it can still be retried later.
Another contradiction is with the idea of an atemporal God, as atemporality is a self-contradiction.
Well I admit that this point is difficult to explain, but my detailed study of the foundations of mathematics turned out to show that even the abstract world of mathematics in itself is a dynamical one with its abstract time order, and there are precise reasons for this, that can be universally applied. Nothing can exist outside time. The only existing things that stand still are the past events, but they are dead (unchangeable). So it makes no sense to speak about God in the absolute: just like we can speak about someone as he was at different ages with evolving thoughts and characters (but some continuity of identity), we may speak about the past God that created the universe, or the today's God that knows what is happening now but not yet what will happen next; or God as He will finally be sometime in the future and how He will see our current life from birth to death - but it will then be too late for Him to inspire our present.
Every action of God (if exists) is chosen based on the sight on some specific range of knowledge, that of things that are already past at the time the action is made.
But please know that my life and the evidences that I base my conclusions on, is very huge and not reduced to what I can explain in a small thread, and that your willingness to judge how founded are my conclusions based on your interpretation of my above messages, as if my conclusions were only based on what I can demonstrate here in a few paragraphs, is just ridiculous, and a perfect example of the type of human error by wrong conceptual approximations, wrongly abstracting while ignoring the contents, that Qet accuses the human intellect in being tempted to do - but which is in fact the only problem of the amateur, popular, unscientific practice of reason, which the scientific method, scientific professionalism and the deeper and more accurate intelligence of a few, is precisely here to overcome; if it was true that the human intellect was uncurably flawed like this, there could not have been such a thing as modern science; or if was true that the logical abilities and possible flaws were the same among humans, then everybody (including the ancient greek philosophers) would be equally able to properly understand (or remain unable to understand) particle physics, which is obviously not the case.
Do you think you may be more skilled than me in mathematics, logics or any science ? I explained my views on the principles of rationality here.
First, they call Him a God of Justice and Love (or Mercy).
That, by itself, would not be so much a contradiction. We could indeed figure out ways to reconcile these two characters, either by compromise or by seeing them as different aspects of some deeper principle (like waves and particles in quantum physics).
But the devil is in the details of what the Christian doctrine means by the "justice" and "love" of its God.
Namely, the Christian description of divine "justice" is that of infinite hatred and sadism; while the Christian description of divine love (or mercy) is that of infinite injustice.
The result is that when Christians claim to believe in a God of Justice and Love, what they really mean is that they believe in a God of hatred and injustice, ridiculously misqualified as if this horror was the description of highest possible "justice and love", even higher than any human can imagine ; and we have the obligation to remain blind to this mistake, and keep worshipping that horror and calling it a god of "justice and love", otherwise we go to hell.
But the same God cannot combine the characters of Justice, Love, Injustice and Sadism. So we have a sort of contradiction here.
Another problem is with the status of Redemption: it plays the role of a sort of universal event, that is a contradiction. The same thing cannot combine both statuses of being existential and universal.
To see the contradiction, consider the question:
Imagine that the act of Redemption by the death of the Son of God had not happened on the Earth 2000 years ago, but on a planet of some other galaxy instead (in an event from which the light did not reach us yet), while the Jesus story here only emerged as a tale that people mistakenly believed in. Then would this act of Redemption in another galaxy be equally valid to save us ?
If yes, then Redemption is universal. If no, it is existential. It cannot be both.
You can also consider the same question if this act of Redemption only exists in God's plans for our Earth in year 12,345 AD as measured by our imperfect conventions - and ifever something will make it fail, it can still be retried later.
Another contradiction is with the idea of an atemporal God, as atemporality is a self-contradiction.
Well I admit that this point is difficult to explain, but my detailed study of the foundations of mathematics turned out to show that even the abstract world of mathematics in itself is a dynamical one with its abstract time order, and there are precise reasons for this, that can be universally applied. Nothing can exist outside time. The only existing things that stand still are the past events, but they are dead (unchangeable). So it makes no sense to speak about God in the absolute: just like we can speak about someone as he was at different ages with evolving thoughts and characters (but some continuity of identity), we may speak about the past God that created the universe, or the today's God that knows what is happening now but not yet what will happen next; or God as He will finally be sometime in the future and how He will see our current life from birth to death - but it will then be too late for Him to inspire our present.
Every action of God (if exists) is chosen based on the sight on some specific range of knowledge, that of things that are already past at the time the action is made.
Well I made the effort to be clear but if it's not enough I'm afraid it may be hopeless. The fact that you don't see the perfect logical rigor of my arguments does not mean that it does not exist, but only that it would take more work to explain in all the details and all the other information that I based my conclusion on, that you are not getting yet. Especially as it is of course impossible to explain all my life in a single forum message.Your argument is thoroughly incoherent. I can't see the logical form, I can't discern the premises, I don't understand what your conclusion amounts to.
But please know that my life and the evidences that I base my conclusions on, is very huge and not reduced to what I can explain in a small thread, and that your willingness to judge how founded are my conclusions based on your interpretation of my above messages, as if my conclusions were only based on what I can demonstrate here in a few paragraphs, is just ridiculous, and a perfect example of the type of human error by wrong conceptual approximations, wrongly abstracting while ignoring the contents, that Qet accuses the human intellect in being tempted to do - but which is in fact the only problem of the amateur, popular, unscientific practice of reason, which the scientific method, scientific professionalism and the deeper and more accurate intelligence of a few, is precisely here to overcome; if it was true that the human intellect was uncurably flawed like this, there could not have been such a thing as modern science; or if was true that the logical abilities and possible flaws were the same among humans, then everybody (including the ancient greek philosophers) would be equally able to properly understand (or remain unable to understand) particle physics, which is obviously not the case.
Do you think you may be more skilled than me in mathematics, logics or any science ? I explained my views on the principles of rationality here.
Post #30
No, I wouldn't claim as much. However, I prefer to ground my arguments in reasoning accessible to all, rather than having it necessarily be couched in life experiences that are incommunicable and open to interpretation of various sorts.
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
~Ludwig Wittgenstein
