Yes Virginia, You Can Prove Some Negatives
This journal entry is important for the same reason that the non-existence of Barack Obama's authentic Kenyan birth certificate is important. There is a proportion of the population that has a serious problem finding which side of a dispute bears the burden of evidence, and whether or not extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and where faith is an acceptable substitute for evidence. I suspect if we combat that mindset, their religious experience will not wither, but will simply be expressed in healthier and less destructive ways.
OK, I got the justification out of the way. One more disclaimer: I have very little interest in convincing deists or agnostics to change their minds. Their goals are allied with mine. I'm glad to hear why they are satisfied that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven. I would be happy to describe why I, personally, am satisfied that God does not and cannot exist, without needing to convince them to agree. And that's what I'm going to do.
What I do want to accomplish is to counter the tendency for agnostics to support principles of thinking such as "we can't prove a negative", which go astray and support our mutual opponents in the public sphere. (See the first paragraph.) Atheism is a mere academic exercise, but critical thinking skills are important to a broad range of issues, and need our support.
Many negatives are actually pretty easy to prove.
For one instance, square circles are contradictory. Preachers make claims of infinities about the biblical God that contradict themselves all over the place.
For another instance, "a coffee mug in my right hand at this moment" can be proven a negative truth claim through observation. The Bible describes the Christian God with some claims of intervention which, if true, would be observable, or would leave forensic evidence. Creation Scientists claim to prove their specific version of a Creator God all the time-- a Creator that even most agnostics regard as false.
The stories about Spider Man in the comics, like those of God in the Bible, take place on Earth, where we can go and look. Web-swinging in a major metropolis could not fail to attract attention, so if true, his stories would be almost as provable as those of God.
If we claim that god might exist somewhere else in the universe, then we might also say that Spider Man comics are true on an Earth in an alternate universe. (Possibly one in which God exists. Who knows?)
The problem is that it makes it sound as if the two options were on equal footing. The truth of Stan Lee's Spider Man story is wildly unlikely. There are all kinds of conceptual problems with radioactive spiders, and hanging from ceilings without the ceiling tiles falling off under the weight. Don't get me started about the spider-sense. Because the biblical description of god has serious problems, it is automatically on the wrong side of the burden of proof. I cannot justify believing in that unless there is overwhelming evidence in support. Showing an unsupported claim is both wildly improbable, and enormous enough that it would loom in the sky like Godzilla, means you get to tell the ironclad supporters that they are full of baloney. Disproving it would be just a garnish on the plate.
We have now achieved the same degree of certainty that we have about day-to-day life-- tentative, open to argumentation, but pragmatically it's in the bag.
To sum up the problems with "we can't prove a negative":
1. The term "god" is left broad enough to encompass the abstract impersonal force behind the big bang (which agnostics often mean) and the God of the Bible.
2. It makes it seem like both claims in a dispute are on equal footing of probability. In any dispute, one claim is usually more likely than the other.
3. Sometimes it requires a level of proof that nobody ever uses in day-to-day life.
That having been said. The non-interventionist, abstract First Cause of the Deists and philosophers-- that is a different story. Quite unprovable one way or another. I am quite agnostic about it. Unfortunately, almost no arguments between theists and atheists are about that god.
Comments
atropis on Oct. 22, 2009 10:10 PM
there is something that people mean when they say 'god' that seems to me to be quite unrelated to bearded sky men or anything like them. the meaning seems somewhat to change with the statement, depending on how it's being used. 'god told me to' is like saying 'i believe beyond anything else ever that this is the right thing to do', for example, whereas a statement like 'there are no atheists in foxholes' refers more to the need that people more or less universally have to believe that things happen for a really good reason, and might be influenced by the 'sparrows' in the foxholes.
also, it might be worth noting (it is to me, at any rate) that there is such a thing as emotional truth, i.e., the internal-only sensation of truth. which is more than true enough to change the lives, thought patterns, minds, attitudes, and actions of the holders of these emotional truths. this is perhaps *the* missing concept, in my mind, from some perfectly-material concept of the world: emotional truths are disregarded, but not less true because they are.
Anonymous on Oct. 30, 2009 10:10 PM
Napoleon Hill did years studying the power of human transmutation. His word for using human will power and energy to change events in their lives. In the case of one of his best sellers...to literally think yourself rich. Unfortunately..he also believes in God and attempts to tie the two together. However..I think he was on to something. There are numerous examples of how folks wanted something so badly and focused on what they wanted so effectively that those things just seemed to happen for them. Many would seem miraculous. You can read all sorts of books about it. I think the untapped thing on earth that has created explainable, but seemingly miraculous things to happen are the result of this type of transmutation. In his transmutation folks take their strongest energy...that of sexual energy and focus it on other things for specific purposes.
You don't need God to get things that seem miraculous. AA gets the same results getting folks off of Alcohol as any Church does. I'll be AA last longer as well because there are no serious of agenda driven cannons or doctrine to take on once their goal has been accomplished.
users on Nov. 3, 2009 1:49 PM
AA is entirely rooted in Christian mythology. They close meetings with the Lord's Prayer. They strongly advocate devotion to a Christian god and church. That isn't a great example.
matt-arnold on Nov. 3, 2009 3:41 PM
You are so right. 12-step programs are said to be extremely counterproductive, extending addiction far longer than necessary in order to keep their members attending. As I'm sure you know, but Anonymous might not know, Rational Recovery was founded for this reason.
I didn't say anything because I normally never respond to anonymous comments on my Livejournal.
users on Nov. 5, 2009 8:44 PM
Well, I'd pretty strongly disagree with that as well. RR has (anecdotally speaking) a comparable success rate to that of 12 step programs; though it reports a ludicrously higher one though a clever 'No True Scotsman' approach to RR recidivism (if they relapse, they weren't following the program in the majority of cases).
12 step programs have many flaws, but they are among the best things going for a number of reasons. Dealing with addicts and addiction isn't a "rational" science, and there's very little in the way of "rational" methods of dealing with such an irrational mental illness.
matt-arnold on Nov. 5, 2009 8:51 PM
I will defer to your knowledge of this.
tallizen on Oct. 22, 2009 11:57 PM
How about can god create a rock so heavey he can not lift it???
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