Philosophical arguments against the existence of God

[anonymous person]

Considering that I am talking about claims concerning phenomena of reality, could you give an example of both?

I'm also very curious as to what those "other means" are. Hopefully a detailed explanation of this follows later in this post.




I never said otherwise.
But what I'm asking about is how to assess the truth value of a claim.
It seems to me that a claim that is not subject to verification, can't be verified. And I wonder how one goes about to assess the truth value of those claims.

The claims may be correct and they may be incorrect. The question is how we can tell wheter they are correct or incorrect, if not through some logical form of testability.

How do we verify if the claim about reality actually matches reality, if we can't verify if it does?



yes, yes...

None of this is an answer to my question. I'm still hoping to get an answer later on in the post.



How can I tell if your claims are true or false if I cannot verify them? If I can not test them to see if they actually match reality?

Am I to "just believe you"?



What claims do I make that can't be verified?

And I'm still waiting on what those "other means" of verification are.



How do I tell if your claim is based in truth, if I can not verify it and test it against actual reality?



I understand that you went through a lot of trouble to write this post and talked about empiricism and how certain claims can't be empirically verified. And I agree certain claims can't be verified.

But that was not my question. My question is: how can I assess the truth value of a claim, if I can not test that claim against reality?

You spoke about "other means" in the beginning of your post.

Those "other means" are what I am asking about.
What are they?

Please just answer the question.

The proposition:

"We cannot assess the truth value of a claim unless it can be verified empirically."

Itself cannot be verified empirically.

What do you not understand about what I just said?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I would need to supply this if I were arguing for the existence of God. I am not doing that in this thread though so to bring it up is futile.

I know you aren't. And it's exactly why the thread is desperate and meaningless.
I could create a thread to discuss arguments against the undetectable 7-headed dragon that follows me everywhere, and I would win all of them, since no reasonable argument against an unfalsifiable idea can be made.

And the reason is that an unfalsifiable idea is completely meaningless. Unfalsifiable ideas are almost infinite in number, in fact - only restricted by your imagination.

And to close this circle, that's exactly why falsifiability and testability of ideas matter.
At least, if you care about what you believe, is actually true...

There are arguments against the existence of God. You have seen some of them presented here. Bringing up what you have is simply unnecessary. You do not need to explain to us what you have because no one here is arguing against what you are saying.

Do you understand that?

I understand that.

Do you understand the point that *i* am making?

You could refute every single argument "against" your god and it wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't advance the case FOR god at all. Not even slightly.

This entire thread is no more or less then a gigantic shift of the burden of proof.

 

[anonymous person]

I know you aren't. And it's exactly why the thread is desperate and meaningless.
I could create a thread to discuss arguments against the undetectable 7-headed dragon that follows me everywhere, and I would win all of them, since no reasonable argument against an unfalsifiable idea can be made.

And the reason is that an unfalsifiable idea is completely meaningless. Unfalsifiable ideas are almost infinite in number, in fact - only restricted by your imagination.

And to close this circle, that's exactly why falsifiability and testability of ideas matter.
At least, if you care about what you believe, is actually true...



I understand that.

Do you understand the point that *i* am making?

You could refute every single argument "against" your god and it wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't advance the case FOR god at all. Not even slightly.

This entire thread is no more or less then a gigantic shift of the burden of proof.

I don't think arguments against the existence of God are desperate and meaningless. I see no reason why they would be. Obviously other atheists here would agree with me.

If you think they are meaningless then don't waste your time engaging them. Just ignore them and let others participate at their leisure.

 

[DogmaHunter]

The proposition:

"We cannot assess the truth value of a claim unless it can be verified empirically."

Itself cannot be verified empirically.

What do you not understand about what I just said?

What don't you understand about my question?
Here it is again:

How do you assess the truth value of a claim, if not through some form of testability?

Also, you mentioned in your other post that if a claim can't be tested empirically, then one has to assess the truth value thereof through "some other means".

I asked what those "other means" were.

Are you going to answer it? After all YOU said it.

Please, answer the questions.

What are those "other means"?
How to assess the truth value of a claim, if not through some form of testing/verification?

 

[anonymous person]

I know you aren't. And it's exactly why the thread is desperate and meaningless.
I could create a thread to discuss arguments against the undetectable 7-headed dragon that follows me everywhere, and I would win all of them, since no reasonable argument against an unfalsifiable idea can be made.

And the reason is that an unfalsifiable idea is completely meaningless. Unfalsifiable ideas are almost infinite in number, in fact - only restricted by your imagination.

And to close this circle, that's exactly why falsifiability and testability of ideas matter.
At least, if you care about what you believe, is actually true...



I understand that.

Do you understand the point that *i* am making?

You could refute every single argument "against" your god and it wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't advance the case FOR god at all. Not even slightly.

This entire thread is no more or less then a gigantic shift of the burden of proof.

LOL, I assure you, I will never make the argument that God exists because atheists have bad arguments for the non-existence of God.

So take a deep breath.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I don't think arguments against the existence of God are desperate and meaningless.

I did not say that. Perhaps you should read the post you reply to with a bit more attention.

I said that unfalsifiable claims are meaningless.
By extension, it's meaningless to ask for arguments against the unfalsifiable claims.

I see no reason why they would be. Obviously other atheists here would agree with me.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Seems obvious to me. To prove me wrong.

As if you would ever admit that you were wrong? Your faith won't allow it.

I would appeal to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit only when doing so was called for, and no argument you have provided thus far even require me to do so. For example, suppose you were to attempt to prove to me that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit was nothing more than just my subconscious thoughts masquerading as the Holy Spirit and that there was no actual witness of the Holy Spirit. I would wait for you to try and prove this and then address it without even appealing to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. An appeal to the Holy Spirit is an appeal that I make only when necessary. I have never wielded the appeal as some sword with which to cut down every attempt at proving me wrong.

You may say, Jesus is not alive.

In response I would not appeal to the inner witness to say, "He lives in my heart, you are wrong!" That would not be very persuasive to you.

The appeal to the inner witness is not really even an argument people use to demonstrate the veracity of the central truth claims of Christianity. Rather, it is more of an assurance that a child of God has that he is indeed born of God. It is not something visible or tangible that one uses to argue God exists, and no Christian philosopher who appeals to it appeals to it for this reason.

It seems to me you have a misunderstanding of why people appeal to the inner witness.

The challenge to prove you wrong assumes that you would be willing to revise your beliefs if they were indeed shown to be wrong. That is not the case. Therefore, the challenge is made in bad faith. Even if you were shown to be wrong, you would remain just as certain about your beliefs as ever.

No I would not. I ask that you refrain from making such claims about what I would or would not do. It is presumptuous. I shall gladly do the same for you.

It's not at all presumptuous. I am basing this on what you yourself have stated; that is, on your posting history.

My apologetic is intricately related to the philosophy of religion. Give me some good reasons to question my beliefs and I will. But don't expect me to question them if all you have to present is "you are playing the apologetics game".

You were already caught being deceptive about this once.

Ok then drop it.

Why should I? You come on here pretending to be a Christian philosopher, pretending to approach these matters with the desire to "objective, honest, and open." I'm calling you to task.

 

[DogmaHunter]

LOL, I assure you, I will never make the argument that God exists because atheists have bad arguments for the non-existence of God.

So take a deep breath.

Good for you.

But then, one has to wonder what the point of the thread is.

 

[bhsmte]

LOL, I assure you, I will never make the argument that God exists because atheists have bad arguments for the non-existence of God.

So take a deep breath.

Still not willing to understand how burden of proof applies, towards positive claims I see.

 

[anonymous person]

Good for you.

But then, one has to wonder what the point of the thread is.

I wanted to see what people here thought was the best argument against the existence of God was.

 

[anonymous person]

Still not willing to understand how burden of proof applies, towards positive claims I see.

I understand how it applies. It applies to anyone making a truth claim.

 

[bhsmte]

I wanted to see what people here thought was the best argument against the existence of God was.

Simple, the lack of reliable evidence to show the existence of a God.

A good analogy would be the prosecution's burden in a murder trial. They are claiming a person murdered someone and the burden is on them to demonstrate their case beyond a reasonable doubt, the burden is not on the defense prove the defendant innocent.

 

[bhsmte]

I understand how it applies. It applies to anyone making a truth claim.

You don't demonstrate you adhere to the burden of proof.

 

[anonymous person]

As if you would ever admit that you were wrong? Your faith won't allow it.

The challenge to prove you wrong assumes that you would be willing to revise your beliefs if they were indeed shown to be wrong. That is not the case. Therefore, the challenge is made in bad faith. Even if you were shown to be wrong, you would remain just as certain about your beliefs as ever.

It's not at all presumptuous. I am basing this on what you yourself have stated; that is, on your posting history.

You were already caught being deceptive about this once.

Why should I? You come on here pretending to be a Christian philosopher, pretending to approach these matters with the desire to "objective, honest, and open." I'm calling you to task.

Oh ok.

So now what?

 

[bhsmte]

Oh ok.

So now what?

I would imagine, you continue on the same path you have been on.

 

[anonymous person]

You don't demonstrate you adhere to the burden of proof.

Ok.

So now what?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Simple, the lack of reliable evidence to show the existence of a God.

This is pretty much it.

 

[anonymous person]

I would imagine, you continue on the same path you have been on.

Ok.

Do you have an argument against the existence of God you would like to provide?

 

[bhsmte]

Ok.

So now what?

Might be a better question to ask yourself.

 

[bhsmte]

Ok.

Do you have an argument against the existence of God you would like to provide?

I just gave you the reason I don't believe in Gods.

Likely the same reason you don't believe in a lot of things.