Faith cant prove a negative either.

One argument you'll see often is that you cant prove a negative. I've already pointed out in a previous post that this fundamentally wrong and at best you can only assert that you cannot disprove a claim that has no testable qualities.

This means that you cannot prove there was no creator standing behind the big bang because we have no way to test that claim.

I cannot disprove that some god created the universe.

I also cannot prove that some god created the universe.

And of perhaps greater concern for people of faith the inability to disprove one creator (especially when evidence that contradicts the creation myth is dismissed as intentional by the creator) equates to the inability to disprove ANY creation myth from the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime to the Mesopotamian myth of creation.

Why god? Why a single god? There are many discussions on this topic, but deeper morality issues like freewill and the problem of good and evil actually get easier to counter if you have more than one god. Mesopotamian creation gives as much scientifically accurate information as genesis and neatly explains how not everything in the universe seems to go to the plan of a single good loving god.

Why not spirits that become alive, waking into physical forms, becoming the material from which the universe was created? The Dreaming offers more coherent answers to questions like good and evil by explaining that the creators did think or live in such simple bipolar terms.

The christian creation myth is not even consistent, with two conflicting descriptions of genesis. For a widely accepted religion it falls far short of meeting any burden of proof.

At least the Dreamtime doesn't attempt to include a timeline for the creation of the universe... especially one that that fails as badly as genesis to meet the facts. Ask a young earth creationist how we can see light from stars so distant that it must have taken more than 6000 to reach us when the universe is only 6000 years old?

Actually dont do that - especially not from answersingenesis.org whose ramblings will rapidly muddy the water with ideas like:

• "observational science" vs "historical/origins science" (Which is nonsense, science is a method pure and simple - there are different areas of study but there are not different ways to do science other than good science and bad science. You would not trust a doctor who said he would cure you with "elf science" that he got from a book on elves, or "better luck next time science" where his cures have always killed the patient but "he's got to get lucky sooner or later right?").
• The idea that the universe was created "fully mature" like Adam was! (This would only make sense if the universe was like adam and one of many we could compare to determine what a "maturity" universe is)
• That the speed of light is widely variable (While it does actually change depending on the medium, its not by much and if it did change that much we would see evidence in comparing closer stars with ones further away)
• That time is not rigid (Sorry... this one is totally laughable given that the whole premis of young earth creation is based on a day in the bible being a single normal 24 hour day as we know it.)
• Finally they will probably wrap up with some poorly and incorrectly explained physics - If you want to know what a big bang physicist says then ask one directly the web is full of really good explanations - try starting here). 

None of these arguments actually work, AIG just includes as many as possible to make it look like there is a lot of doubt on the issue - which there isn't.

Every time a testable quality of a god claim is removed or watered down or described as a special case (special pleading) they weaken their own argument and god moves further from an actual claim to a vague idea.

But best of all every time a religionist dodges the question and refuse to make testable claims about his god and his creation myth he strengthens the claims of every other creation myth and any creation myth you care to make up on the spot. They are all as testable and verifiable as each other.

Religionists weaken their own ability to tell fact from fiction when they use these arguments or claim that even a tiny chance that something might be true in some form means that it is totally true.

You'll find evidence for this in the number of people who believe in ghosts, spirits, white witches, and other forms of mysticism in addition to a claim to follow christianity or other faith that do not actually support those beliefs.

Religionists need to stop hiding in doubt and bring their arguments and claims into the light. I dont agree with the AIG guys but at least they clearly communicate their claims and dont shy away from them just because they are manifestly wrong.

It's foolish but it has a certain integrity.

Now if only they could stop misrepresenting science, quoting out of date research and reciting logical fallacies then there might be hope for them.

Faith Makes Evil Bedfellows

I am a child of the internet, I grew up with the information super high way and was perhaps one of the first generations to do so.

Debates, flame wars, and irrational arguments are part of my heritage.

The thing about a discussion is that you present your views and your arguments and you understand that lies and aggression dont resolve disputes... ever. When people get nasty the debate becomes a war and people will fight it not because they feel they are right but because they think the other side does not deserve to win.

The other day I made a comment on an article on a pro-life website. It was a small comment but it triggered some interesting responses. Specifically the person was of the opinion that "To discuss a moral issue without [the christian] god was [insane]" effectively throwing out any non-theistic argument.

I dont claim this person is representative of the people who read and comment on this type of article... In fact I think the vast majority are much more moderate in their views and would never say that a person who did not believe in Jesus should be banned form a moral debate.

But where were these people?

I comment on blogs often (faith based, secular, and atheistic) and I never see the moderates telling off the radicals on faith based forums. In the secular and atheists forums/comment threads it's different I have seen people pulled up for saying "I hope the burglar gets caught and that he is punished" simply because the person writing it used the masculine pronoun assuming the thief in question was male.

Outside of faith-based discussions people have far less problems calling out someone on their side for making a non-factual or fallacious argument.

I made a comment myself about what should and should not be allowed to be taught to kids in an atheist forum and was pulled up on it by another member, he was right and I changed my stand accordingly.

But on faith discussions I see far less willingness to do so...

Recently in one article on a pro-life website I have seen people in the comments claim that sex outside natural marriage was rape, and that using a condom was murder.

Why is it that the moderates of faith let those statements slide?

I know people who have been raped, for whom the experience was so terrible it still effects them years later. To liken all consensual sex, all love making outside of a christian marriage to that experience is insulting enough to me but those people who have experienced rape, it is a dismissal of all their pain with a single semantic swipe.

In other articles I have seen people claim that no woman ever dies from not receiving an abortion, this discussion just days before a woman in ireland died because they would not performa life saving procedure while there was a foetal heart beat, nor would they abort the foetus even though the child could not be saved. Savita Halappanavar was the victim of a faith based policy that says when the mothers life can only be saved by terminating the child it is better to let them both die.

Again, why is it that the only people calling these people out, the only ones willing to stand up and point out the absurdity of the claim that abortions are never needed to save a mothers life were people who were pro-choice. Did nobody on the pro life side realise that the facts had been distorted to support the claim?

As far as I can see it is because people of faith hold that others are entitled to their beliefs even if it is radicalised and would cost lives, even if it is bigoted, and even if it is manifestly wrong.

Unless of course... those beliefs contradicts the laws of god.

Then it is not a belief to be tolerated, it is immorality, it is evil, or it is "insanity".

It has been said by many people better than me that moderate religious positions create safe harbours for dangerous radicals most of who are fundamentalists or literalists.

I think this is only true because moderates too often fail in their duty to fight the extreme views they do not share. They allow tolerance of different peoples of faith to prevent them from chastising and openly disagreeing with statements and practices that go against their own morals.

They do this simply because they have been raised to think "faith" is a virtue.

It takes a major event like a woman dying after days of agony or a you girl being shot in the face to stimulate people of faith to protect against their bedfellows.

But by then it is too late and the damage has been done.

It is important for anyone engaged in a debate to remain intellectually honest, this means not trading in your ethics and not throwing away your principles in favor of flawed or untruthful arguments. It also means not silently accenting to arguments that you fundamentally disagree with just because it suits your current position.

I dont claim that only people of faith are subject to this particular weakness, it seduces anyone who feels passionate about their position but the when you consider faith a virtue you have a blind spot to the motivations of others who share that faith.

TAG: You're It, But God Isn't

TAG is shorthand for the The "Transcendental Argument for God".

A complete description of the argument and it's common variants can be found an IronChariots.org.

Briefly, the argument seeks to establish the existence of transcendental (or absolute) logical concepts, and then to argue that such transcendental concepts necessitate a transcendental mind (or god). The TAG argument is one of the many attempts to prove that god is a logical requirement of the universe.

Simply put:

1. There are logical absolutes
1. Law of identity
2. Law of non-contradictions
3. Law of excluded middle
2. These logical absolutes are true, always
3. These logical absolutes are transcendental, that is, independent of and not contingent on, space, time or matter
4. These logical absolutes are concepts
5. Concepts require a mind
6. In order to be true always there must be a mind always to conceive them.

At this point, proponents of TAG tend to wrap up with "therefore god" or words to that effect, without any attempt to further deduce the limitations or possible scope of the mind in question (or minds as a plurality of metaphysical minds cannot be disproved using this logic).

By writing my thoughts on this I am probably fighting far over my weight but the flaw in the argument is actually quite simple, and it all springs from a simple question.

Does the world obey logic, or does logic describe the world?

Maps do not determine the terrain, they only describe it.

What we call "laws" of logic are descriptions, explanations, concepts of the fundamental nature of reality. But they are not the nature of reality themselves. We assume they are naturally emergent when a mind capable of abstract thought considers reality, which is a fancy way of saying that people should be able to come up with them without being told, just by thinking about it (and more than one philosopher has done exactly that in the long run of history).

The laws of logic are the same as any law of nature, in that they represents reality but do not cause it. We say they are "absolute" not because they are totally true, but because we have abstracted them from all subjective elements to produce an "absolute" or "pure" form of the observed behaviour.

It's a bit like the old question "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?" in a strict scientific sense the answer is "no" because sound is defined as vibrations perceived by the act of hearing. The question however was originally meant simply to illustrate "unperceived existence" and personal perception of the universe - Does it exist for me if I cannot perceive it?

But reality is the state of things actually existing independent of perception or conception - Reality is that which persists when you stop believing in (or perceive) it. It is the shared context in which we all exist, that which is the same for each of us (Note: that is not the same as saying "that which we all agree on".)

Reality therefore and it's nature comes before any concept used to understand, describe, predict, define, or encompass it.

Logical absolutes (concepts) are true, always, because they attempt to describe other things (properties of existence), that are true always. An excellent example of how heated the TAG discussion can ge can be seen here. (many thanks to Atheist Community of Austin for an awesome and informative show)

The entire argument from the theists side relies on semantics to allow a fallacy of equivocation to slip thought the gaps. Basically because there is no clear distinction made between the logical laws and qualities of consistent reality they are attempting to describe, theists then proceed to ascribe the qualities of each to the other, concepts become transcendental properties of reality, and properties of reality now need a mind to contain them.

This kind of confusion is really only possible/easy with logical absolutes because they have been reduced to the simplest possible conceptual truths. If TAG were tried using the concept of gravity, it could easily be pointed out that the details of our concept of gravity change as we learn and observe more, while the actual behaviours we describe remain consistent, separating the two.

The concept and the actual effect are obviously two different things, but logical absolutes are a distillation of other concepts, a reduction down to that which can be considered safely immutable. For them, the simple, enlightening contrast between the idea and the reality is not so evident.

At best the transcendental argument for god is simply flawed reasoning, a failure to critically examine an argument that supports your theory. At worst TAG is a logical slight of hand used to give false hope to people questioning their faith and cast doubt in the minds of others. In either case it not useful as a proof for the existence of anything but the need for better arguments.