There is more stupidity in the universe than hydrogen and it has a longer shelf life, Frank Zappa.
The author of this post is asking for proof there is no evidence for gods. Further he wants to be shown proof that demonstrates that you have no burden of proof. He does this, as he says, so that
By exposing such error and praying God will bless our doing so, we should hope to see fruit. May the Glory of God shine through it!
When I first read the post, I thought it was a load of crap and said almost as much. The author thinks I am being unfair. So I asked him to tell me what gods are. His answer[emphasis mine]
an absolute, objective authority exists and is self evident.
I am interested in knowing any believer who goes to church to worship such a monster. Why, if any god is self-evident do we question its existence? Is the questioning not enough evidence that the existence of gods, any god, is not obvious.
I think every christian believer, believes in a god that is a person, that hears prayers, punishes others, is sometimes jealous, is loving and so on. But because they modern christian finds such a god impossible to believe, they pretend to believe in an abstraction. They call it by many names such as ground of being, necessary being, infinite being and so on but this is so far removed from the very idea of god they have in the bible. So that at the end, the god argued for is different from the god believed in, and such is christian apologetics.
He then in his response writes
P1: If it is impossible to deny that an absolute, objective authority exists, without first assuming it is true, then it is true that an absolute, objective authority exists.
P2: It is impossible to deny that an absolute, objective authority exists, without first assuming it is true.
C: Thus, it is true that an absolute, objective authority exists.
which can be rewritten to read thus
P1: If it is impossible to deny that
anabsolute, objective authoritya green donkey exists, without first assuming it is true, then it is true thatan absolute, objective authoritya green donkey exists.
P2: It is impossible to deny thatan absolute, objective authoritya green donkey exists, without first assuming it is true.
C: Thus, it is true thatan absolute, objective authoritya green donkey exists.
I maybe missing something, but I would love to be shown if P1 and 2 are valid and whether the C follows necessarily from them.
IMV, the first premise is loaded. What is being sought is already assumed to be true.
Random thoughts 
And I want proof that there is no proof of a burglary … and so it goes on. But really, who cares? They want to believe? Fine. Just don’t encroach on my turf.
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Glad to see you back.
They can believe all they want to but to claim that it is rational and ask we agree is to ask for too much
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Thank you. They should keep it to themselves. That’s all. Not try to engage with rational thinking people.
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Definitely.
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>> for proof there is no evidence for gods
Clearly that person believes there’s evidence that gods exist, otherwise such question is just ridiculous. I am fine if people believe in stuff without evidence, but to demand proof the evidence does not exist…
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is to ask for too much. I don’t think he believes in god. He believes in an absolute, objective authority. I would wish a guy praying to replace god with such balderdash and see how long he shall keep at his faith
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It’s all word salad in the same vein as the ontological argument, which has been discredited for a long time. Existence is not a category. First you need to have something, then you can say things about it.
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when I told him it is a word salad, he said he interacts with atheists involved in education and they haven’t told him he is stupid.
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Perhaps they have a modicum of empathy.
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I told him as much
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Where did he learn his logic, Sesame Street?
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Is that a bible college? Then yes
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William Lane Craig in drag
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I think WLC on weed
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Nah, no one on pot has ever said, written, or thought: Premise One…. 😉
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Wait, what? Are you implying that a green donkey doesn’t exist? Where’s your proof?
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Doob, you understand my problem very well.
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“an absolute, objective authority exists and is self evident.” Which one? What does it look like? These arguments are idiotic. This dude’s a christian. This gibberish in WLC style is insulting to the intelligence. I have more respect for the christian who says, “I know there is no evidence that Jesus is god, but I accept it on faith alone that he is and that’s enough for me.” While I don’t agree with said statement, it is at least honest. These gibberish filled christian apologetic arguments are as insulting as they are common, and wrong. Batman must exist because you can’t prove he doesn’t. Bull crap.
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It is bullshit written dressed in big words
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Hey, Noel, Just read what’s happened in Garissa.
I am sorry and shocked my friend.
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Hey Ark, thanks friend.
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I don’t watch television so I missed this and just picked it up from a blog. I am completely stunned. This is tragic beyond words.
How are authorities dealing with it?
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Well, knee jerk response as you would expect. Training more police, tell us they are sorry, no stone will be left unturned and then hope we forget very quickly and move on
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Insanity rules the roost.
Sometimes one might be forgiven for thinking religion needs to be put down like a rabid dog.
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It should be, and should have a long time ago. How it continues to survive is worthy of a doctorate dissertation
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I have a feeling that if this happened in the states it would have invoked another ‘War on Terror”, yet because it is in Africa noone says diddly squat.
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I have seen people asking on twitter how is it no African head of state is matching for the students who were killed similar to the Charlie Hebdo
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Self interest will rear its ugly head here.
Most of the ”civilized world” still think lions and elephants roam our streets.
I’ll bet most people ”overseas” wouldn’t even know where Kenya is.
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Well if Africa is a country, kenya must be one of the towns
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Lol! And Jo’burg is a shack in the sticks a bit further South.
Remember, we have no oil.
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There is a level of ignorance that should be declared a global disaster
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I think the larger portion of the ‘disaster fund’ should be directed to the USA.
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Haha. Definitely
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Just reading the noneseek link and have left a comment. This bloke sounds a bit like another prayson.
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He is worse than prayson. I once said theists who pretend to venture into philosophy do such a bad job of it
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And you are right. But they do it because it’s the only field of endeavor where you can convince an onion it is a table. And a male table at that, so convincing themselves a god is real is simple.
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Haha hahaha. I just call them idiots. They can complain of ad hominem attacks but there is no rational way of dealing with them
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The attempts to force the atheist to defend the ”No God” claim is risible. It simply demonstrates they have no true faith in their belief.
If I claim I have a Liverpool T-Shirt in my wardrobe and someone says ”There is no T Shirt.”
I’ll pull the bloody thing out and wave it in their face!
”Look, arsehole – T Shirt!”
(Although, after getting hammered 4-1 by Arsenal today I might not want to admit to anything)
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Hahaha.
Oh yes and the fellow in his mind felt he had written something profound.
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well, I took this as a challenge, because the main argument is clearly mistaken, but the generalizations deployed made it difficult to get a grip on, at first.
“P1: If it is impossible to deny that an absolute, objective authority exists, without first assuming it is true, then it is true that an absolute, objective authority exists.
P2: It is impossible to deny that an absolute, objective authority exists, without first assuming it is true.
C: Thus, it is true that an absolute, objective authority exists.”
P1: If (X denies P), this implies (X affirms P), then P.
(Or: If (not P then P), then P.)
(But “not p then p” implies the conjunct, “not P and P.”
(I.e., “(X denies P), implies (X affirms P)” asserts: “(X denies P) and (X affirms P),” i.e., (-P and P)).
P2: (X denies P) and (X affirms P). (I.e., -P and P.)
C: Therefore P.
More simply:
(-P and P), then P;
(-P and P);
therefore p.
This is not a fallacy, because it is not quite yet an argument; it violates principles of logical negation (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negation), by packing a contradiction into an assertion: -(-p and p) is a strict contradiction and says precisely nothing. Then the argument simply asserts p; accepting this as an argument, it is open to a criticism of reductio ad absurdum:
“A curious logical consequence of the principle of non-contradiction is that a contradiction implies any statement; if a contradiction is accepted, any proposition (or its negation) can be proved from it. This is known as the principle of explosion (Latin: ex falso quodlibet, “from a falsehood, anything [follows]”, or ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet, “from a contradiction, anything follows”), or the principle of Pseudo-Scotus.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
But the simplest response is to remark that no proper argument has been made.
Additionally, we can remark that no terms have been defined such that a proper argument can be constructed using them. But I think that’s been obvious to all the readers here.
On the question whether it is possible to ‘prove a negative’ (the denial of which is the complement to this), you might be interested in this short and very accessible paper by philosopher Stephen Hales: http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
(See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence#Proving_a_negative.)
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Thanks good friend.
I knew there was something wrong with the argument.
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Where’s the burden of proof to show a burden of proof is needed to prove that proof is needed to prove absolute proof is needed to prove an all powerful guy runs the universe without proof that he actually does?
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this burden of proof of burden of proof does make me mad
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This was a beautiful comment, my friend. I’m crying over it, just a little, as I write this response. Well put!
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After reading this, [More simply:
(-P and P), then P;
(-P and P);
therefore p.] I now have to pee.
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LOL
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I can understand that mate. There is a lot of p’s there
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I just got through reading the comments. He writes, comparing Allah to his god, then backs it up with biblical quotes:
Christians like him are the most dangerous because they truly believe that they are acting and moving on their
green donkey’sgod’s behalf.Noel, I was so sadden by what happened in your country by religious zealots who believe that they are acting and moving on behalf of their god.
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That was a tragic affair. I hope the gods would one day sit in a council and resolve their differences.
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Thanks Mak for pointing out another hysterically funny christian post. Yours and Ark’s comments to him were similar to the famous skit from from Abbott and Costello, “Who’s on first?” This was almost as funny as the “Africa is a mental construct” post.
——————
I’ll have to look up what’s going on in your side of the world…it sounds tragic. 😦
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It is tragic.
Thanks Vi, funny thing these guys feel slighted when we point out their reasoning is flawed
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It was a brilliantly funny debate Mak…I thoroughly enjoyed it, and can’t wait for you to bring more of these gems to my attention.
I read the news about the university…what a utterly horrible thing to have happen. So many people dead…and it sounds like the killing went on for hours. 😦
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He is the type to leave alone. He is convinced he has written an argument that isn’t assailable so no matter how much you point out that it is fallacious, it doesn’t get through the skull.
That was a tragic event which in several ways the government must be responsible for. We have a corrupt, poorly equipped police force and a greedy stealing executive and legislature. At some point such failures manifest themselves in incidences like this
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I supposed that blogger IS the type to leave alone, but it was highly entertaining, and I don’t get a lot of entertainment these days. So you brought me a smile!
I think the last I read there were 142 dead…what a terrible loss of life. I was reading about the lack of police, but of course they left out the word “corrupt.”
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I will always try to keep you entertained, that’s what friends do, make one another smile.
Oh yes, terrible, terrible loss of life. 147 I heard. One death alone is one too many, 147 in the name of a god is beyond words
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Since theists claim that their gods have done certain things, there should be evidence for these things. Since there is no evidence of these special things, and evidence for other things happening in their place, that is positive evidence that there are no gods, at least not the ones that believers claim.
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a theist doesn’t understand that. maybe we need to use a hammer to nail it in
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I’m not sure how I missed this post…
But DAMN!!! What a load of shit. This guy had best check his britches, something stinks. That is some of the most asinine bullshit I have heard come out of a creationists mouth. With all of the nonsensical B.S. that I have heard from creationists, this is saying something.
Mak, I too am appalled at what these groups all over the world it seems, are doing in the name of their fucking gods.
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It seems gods want people dead. Could it be the population of hell has gone down beyond allowable limits?
I like such posts. A parson who packs a load of stupid in less than 300 words is a good fellow. I hate it when they write long posts and you have to smear yourself with poo as you wade through the nonsense
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